5 ms·
You seem to be confused (which is fair, this is a little confusing). In 1984, Warner Communications sold Atari's home and computer game division to Jack Tramiel
by ndiddy 2y ago
You seem to be confused (which is fair, this is a little confusing). In 1984, Warner Communications sold Atari's home and computer game division to Jack Tramiel, which became Atari Corporation. Atari Corporation was the company that made all the future Atari consoles (7800, Jaguar, etc) and computers (ST line). Atari Games, Atari's arcade game division, remained with Warner. This article is entirely about Atari Games, who had nothing to do with anything sold for the home market with the Atari name. They were entirely separate companies. The reason why they did business as Tengen was that as part of the split, Atari Games wasn't allowed to sell games to the home market using the Atari name.
I will say that the article is a bit inaccurate at the end. Atari Games kept using the Tengen name for several years after the lawsuit for publishing games on the Genesis. They only stopped in 1994 when Warner consolidated all of its game related brands under the "Time Warner Interactive" name.
- VyseofArcadia 2y agoAhh, I always forget Atari Corporation and Atari games were different. Thanks for the correction.
- EvanAnderson 2y agoPrior to the Warner / Tramiel sale, though, Atari management showed a stunning lack of foresight re: the lifecycle of their console platforms. If I recall properly, I've heard Al Alcorn (and / or perhaps Joe Decuir) talk about how the technical people pitched VCS as a short-lived platform, but management kept the product going far beyond its intended lifetime. The 5200 was released in 1982, built on 1979 technology. The Famicom was released in Japan in 1983 but didn't make it to the United States until 1986. If Atari had made better controller decisions with the 5200, and perhaps included 2600 compatibility, I think Nintendo would have had a much harder row to hoe when they came to the US. Then again, if Atari had taken Nintendo's offer to distribute the NES in the US... (Some people write speculative fiction about world wars having different outcomes. My "The Man in the High Castle" is to wonder about what the world would have been like if Jack Tramiel hadn't been forced out of Commodore, if the Amiga went to Atari, etc.)
- kabdib 2y agoatari marketing was pretty f---ing terrible. objectively so i had one of the home computer division marketing types come to my office one day, and was asked: "can you print out all possible 8x8 bitmaps? we'd like to submit them to the copyright office so no one else can use them" a stunning lack of knowledge of copyright law and basic exponential math. i didn't bother to point out that he really wanted all possible 8x8 _color_ bitmaps (there aren't enough atoms in the universe for this, by many orders of magnitude) they didn't make very good decisions about consoles or computers, either
- bluGill 2y agoAtari made a lot of bad decisions, but what you were asked is not something you should expect someone in marketing to understand in general. There is only so much someone can get good at in their lifetime and so eventually you will have to give up understanding everything - and then look like an idiot when you ask for something that is obviously unreasonable to someone who does know. What was asked for is a reasonable ask. It just isn't possible to create.
- shermantanktop 2y agoAgreed that a marketer can’t be expected to know the math. But is it really reasonable to attempt to copyright every possible 8x8 bitmap?
- Jare 2y agoAsking if you can print all 8x8 bitmaps is very reasonable. Wanting to copyright them to block competition is despicable.
- EvanAnderson 2y agoI'm shocked at how "few" pages printing all 8x8 bitmaps would actually require. Assuming full page coverage of an 8.5 x 11 sheet at 600 dpi I'm only coming with a touch over 548 billion pages. I expected it to be more. Legal-size paper drops that to about 430.5 billion pages.